Search results

The purpose of this paper is to establish the image and associated impression of atmosphere created by independent theatres at two fringe festivals namely, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Melbourne Festival Fringe.

The paper contains a content analysis of promotional materials produced by the independent theatres for their involvement in their respective fringe festival.

The atmosphere created is of fringe festivals replete with serious experimental theatrical productions, with independent theatres being the home of alternative ideas and the performers being skilled in the production of the art form.

The atmosphere created by the independent theatres is similar to that projected by the fringe festival overall.

The paper highlights the importance of the fringe festival organisers establishing a strong working relationship with the managers of independent theatres to ensure the most appropriate promotional material is used to attract the desired target audience to the fringe festival.

This paper is of value as most festival‐related literature provides only a passing mention to atmosphere whereas this paper investigates atmosphere in more depth. The paper adds to the limited research on fringe festivals.

Relatively little is known about marketing communications within the context of special events. The aim of this paper is to begin to address this gap in knowledge by analysing managerial practice, consumer perceptions and preferences in relation to marketing communications for this market offering.

A case study analysis of Festival Melbourne 2006 was undertaken using marketing communications collateral, ethnographic (participant observations) and interview (in‐depth and focus group) data.

A centralised approach to marketing communications was adopted for this event, but was difficult to implement. In addition, it was found that the marketing communications in situ did not assist attendees to make the most of their event experiences. It was also found that research participants prefer to receive information about special events passively.

With the increasing levels of globalisation and standardisation in the event sector there is a need to attain a balance between centralisation and adaptation in relation to marketing communications strategies and their implementation. Furthermore, it is imperative that marketing communications are integrated across all stages of consumption.

This study adds to the body of knowledge about marketing communications, and more generally within events. It also adds to the debate surrounding the integration of marketing communications.

This paper aims to consider the factors contributing to the successful marketing of one‐off special events.

Uses a case study of Festival Melbourne 2006, a multi‐site, multi‐activity sporting and cultural event, to investigate ways of increasing participation through effective marketing communications.

Have you ever been invited to something only to discover that it has already happened? That you have missed your chance to take part in something special? That is the marketing challenge facing the organizers and promoters of special events – large‐scale, never‐to‐be‐repeated happenings taking place in several venues: how do you attract prospective participants and get the right sort of information to them at the right time?

Offers guidance on what does and does not work in the marketing of special events and the level of information needed to deliver a memorable experience.

Highlights the importance of tailoring marketing materials for local events to the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the community audience.

Draws attention to the distinctive challenges of marketing special events.

Producers and consumers – who represent opposing sides of the market – have different frames of reference, which may result in differences in classification of the same products. The authors aim to demonstrate that “classification gaps” have a negative effect on the performance of products and that these effects play a role in different stages of consumers’ decision process.

The data collection consisted of three comprehensive parts covering production and consumption in the music festival market in The Netherlands. The first part focused on festival organizers who were asked to classify their own music festival in terms of musical genres. In total, 70 festival organizers agreed to participate. The second part measured the genre classification of 540 consumers. In the third part, the authors interviewed 1,554 potential visitors of music festivals in The Netherlands about their awareness of the festival and if they considered visiting or actually visited the festival.

This paper provides empirical evidence that a classification gap between the production side and the consumption side of the market has negative effects on music festival performance. In addition, the authors found that this is in part because of lower activation of potential consumers in the marketplace.

An important practical implication of this study is that – in general – producers should be aware that classification gaps can occur – even if they are sure about the classification of their products – and that this can have serious consequences. The category membership of products is often seen as a given, whereas it cannot be assumed that the classification perceived by different economic groups is the same – as demonstrated in this paper.

This paper demonstrates that a fundamental – but understudied – disconnect between the two opposing sides of the market (i.e. producers and consumers) regarding the classification of the same products can have negative effects on performance of these products.

The chapter presents the gospel festival as a significant postmodern religious tourism phenomenon which has not thus far been recognized or critically theorized. To date, conceptualizations of religious tourism, specifically pilgrimages, have been dominated by Turnerian concepts of liminality and communitas. It is suggested that these concepts, while valuable, do not sufficiently account for the heterogeneous and contested nature of these event spaces or their potentiality for the performance of alternative modes of social ordering. The Foucauldian notion of heterotopia is adapted as a more apposite theoretical framework and an example of a gospel festival in Australia is drawn on by way of explication.

The music festival industry is challenged by intense competition and financial exigency. As a result, many festivals have either folded or are currently struggling. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to show that motivator-hygiene-professional (MHP) strategic capabilities (SCs) are positively associated with quality music festival management thereby providing a playbook for potentially mitigating these challenges.

The mixed methods research design comprised a case study of a leading event management company as well as nation-wide in-depth interviews and questionnaire survey. The authors initially confirmed the nature of the challenges to the industry from the case study and the in-depth interviews. The authors then developed an MHP Model of 15 SCs that were identified from the literature and the qualitative research. The relationship of the MHP SCs model to quality music festival management was tested in the questionnaire survey.

The respondents suggested that all the SCs were related to quality music festival management. However, Professional SCs were considered comparatively less important than motivator and hygiene SCs. Across all three groups, interviewees highlighted the significance of artists, site and operational planning, financial and stakeholder management and ticket pricing. In addition, careful planning, delegation and quality focus, problem solving, resolve and flexibility, leadership and vision, communication and innovation were considered conducive to the quality management of music festival organisations.

The MHP SCs model and dimensions of quality management offer music festival event managers a detailed practical playbook for moderating challenges to music festival management. In essence the authors provide the specific drivers that festival managers should best focus their attention upon. Visionary leadership, artist differentiation, innovation, customer service and flexible management have priority.

The findings add to the festival management literature by demonstrating the importance of motivator, hygiene and additional professional SCs for moderating challenges to the music festival industry. To the best of authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have directly investigated specific SCs critical for quality event and festival management. In particular, the academic significance of this paper is that the authors have combined Herzberg’s motivator and hygiene factors with SCs, which are in essence success drivers, to create a novel holistic MHP SCs model for quality music festival management. Further explanatory insight is gained by the addition of a third factor of professional SCs.

The key characteristics that eventually came to be considered to be Australian ‘heavy metal’ emerged between 1965 and 1973. These include distortion, power, intensity, extremity, loudness and aggression. This exploration of the origins of heavy metal in Australia focusses on the key acts which provided its domestic musical foundations, and investigates how the music was informed by its early, alcohol-fuelled early audiences, sites of performance, media and record shops. Melbourne-based rock guitar hero Lobby Loyde’s classical music influence and technological innovations were important catalysts in the ‘heaviness’ that would typify Australian proto-metal in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, loud and heavy rock was firmly established as a driving force of the emerging pub rock scene. Extreme volume heavy rock was taken to the masses was Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs in the early 1970s whose triumphant headline performance at the 1972 Sunbury Pop Festival then established them as the most popular band in the nation. These underpinnings were consolidated by three bands: Sydney’s primal heavy prog-rockers Buffalo (Australia’s counterpart to Britain’s Black Sabbath), Loyde’s defiant Coloured Balls and the highly influential AC/DC, who successfully crystallised heavy Australian rock in a global context. This chapter explores how the archaeological foundations for Australian metal are the product of domestic conditions and sensibilities enmeshed in overlapping global trends. In doing so, it also considers how Australian metal is entrenched in localised musical contexts which are subject to the circulation of international flows of music and ideas.

The purpose of this paper is to account for the remarkable proliferation of Mexican restaurants and tequila bars in contemporary urban Australia, in the absence of any geographical contiguity, historical connection or cultural proximity between Australia and Mexico.

The paper traces how the particularities of direct cultural contact, interpersonal networks and grass-roots entrepreneurism can open up new markets, and how the ground is, thus, prepared for subsequent large-scale international corporate entry to those markets. This research is based on interviews with key figures in the development of the Mexican food industry in Australia, interpreted in terms of the extant literature on cultural globalisation. The first-hand accounts of these participants have been interpreted in the light of available secondary sources and relevant theory.

The most striking theme to emerge in the study is the relative absence of Mexicans, or even Mexico-experienced Australians, in the making of a market for Mexican food in Australia. Rather, initially, Americans were prominent, as entrepreneurs and in forming a consumer market, while in later decades, entrepreneurs and consumers alike have been Australians whose experience of Mexican food has been formed in the United States, not Mexico. The role of hipster subculture and travel is seen as instrumental. Also of interest is the manner in which the personal experiences and interrelationships of the Americans and Australians have shaped the development of the Mexican food industry. This is not to ignore the much more recent participation of a new wave of immigrants from Mexico.

While the scope of the study is national, the sharper focus is on the experience of Melbourne; it would be useful for future researchers to investigate other major cities, even if Melbourne has been the most pivotal of Australian cities in the history of Mexican food in Australia. The study has conceptual and theoretical implications for debates around cultural globalisation and “Americanisation”.

The paper provides a close-grained and suitably theorised account of how a particular consumer trend has become extended on a global basis, with particular attention to both individual experience and agency, and corporate activity.